In this lesson, you will see that Spanish is VERY EASY!
In English there are many words that end in -TION … action, production, education, definition, etc.
-TION is called a suffix.* In Spanish there are also suffixes.
Many words that en in -TION in English, have their corresponding words in Spanish that end in -CIÓN.
For example:
- action (in English) = acción (in Spanish)
- education (in English) = educación (in Spanish)
Can you see how similar these words look? Just the ending (which is similar) changes.
Knowing this rule that -TION ➡️ –CIÓN means that you automatically know hundreds of words in Spanish.
See … Spanish is so easy!
This is the GENERAL rule, BUT you must remember that there will always be excepciones (exceptions).
(* A suffix is a part of a word that is added to the end of the base word to change its meaning or grammatical function.)
Pronunciation of words ending in -CIÓN in Spanish
In English, the accent (or the syllable that you give more emphasis to) of a word ending in -TION is on the syllable BEFORE -TION. For example … ACtion … eduCAtion.
However, in Spanish the accent is on the LAST syllable -CIÓN … acCIÓN … educaCIÓN.
That little mark above the letter O is called a tilde and it lets us know which syllable has the accent or more emphasis. Note: this tilde doesn’t appear in all words, just the ones that don’t follow the normal accent rules … like words ending in -CIÓN.
You can hear the pronunciation of Spanish words ending in -CIÓN in the video.
Examples of -TION changing to -CIÓN
Here is a list of examples of words in English that end in -TION that have their equivalent word in Spanish ending in -CIÓN:
ENGLISH | SPANISH |
---|---|
Action | Acción |
Celebration | Celebración |
Communication | Comunicación |
Correction | Corrección |
Education | Educación |
Formation | Formación |
Foundation | Fundación |
Generation | Generación |
Information | Información |
Inspiration | Inspiración |
Irritation | Irritación |
Limitation | Limitación |
Migration | Migración |
Motivation | Motivación |
Nation | Nación |
Observation | Observación |
Organization | Organización |
Production | Producción |
Publication | Publicación |
Reduction | Reducción |
Regulation | Regulación |
Sensation | Sensación |
Separation | Separación |
Simulation | Simulación |
Vibration | Vibración |